On many, many occasions, latterday Renaissance man Ben Stein has written about his lifelong admiration for President Nixon and the days he spent as a speechwriter in the White House in 1973 and 1974.  But earlier this week at NewsMax, the writer/actor/economist/game-show host discussed that part of his career at much greater length than usual. Ben tells his [...]

Peter Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon, in the nearly six years since it premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in London with Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Langella memorably playing the President, has been performed around the world, its popularity partly spurred by Ron Howard’s filmed adaptation in 2008. It was just a matter of time [...]

On Thursday at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, President Nixon’s younger brother Edward spoke in the second of the Hipp Lecture Series on International Affairs and National Security.  (The first event in this series was a debate among the Republican presidential candidates last fall.) The audience heard Ed Nixon talk about various topics concerning RN’s [...]

Considerable attention was given two months ago to the fortieth anniversary of President Nixon’s visit to China, but this month marked four decades since an event which, though it seems little-remembered now, was also a landmark in its way.  During the 1971 tour that signaled a dramatic change of US-PRC relations after two decades in [...]

In the spring of 1972, long before his three campaigns for the White House, Pat Buchanan was the 33-year-old special assistant in the Nixon White House who had coined the term “silent majority” in the 1968 campaign and now was pondering how his boss could reach that part of the American electorate and secure re-election. As the Democratic [...]

Late last year I wrote about the news that Harry Shearer, veteran comedian and voice actor best known for his multitude of parts on The Simpsons, had contracted with the Sky Arts channel in the UK to do a special, Nixon’s The One, partly based on the 1971-73 White House recordings, which Shearer, with occasional guidance [...]

The late John Cummings, better known by his nom de rock’n’roll of Johnny Ramone, was one of the most important guitar players of the last half-century. His trademark buzzsaw approach to the strings was the instantly recognizable stylistic signature of famed punk-rock ensemble The Ramones, and was heard all over the world from 1975 until [...]

Tomorrow, December 23, marks four decades since President Nixon put his pen to paper and signed into law the National Cancer Act of 1971, which marks one of the most important and imperishable legacies of his Administration. It dramatically increased funding to the National Cancer Institute and provided for programs in collaboration with other state [...]

During this month the big political story on the Republican side of the 2012 presidential race has been the steady upward move of former Rep. Newt Gingrich in opinion polls.  Following a rather shaky start, his ability to display his wide knowledge of policy topics and historical context in the series of GOP debates, and [...]

The late 1960s and early 1970s – in other words, what we now call the Nixon years – were very eventful ones in the history of American sports.  So many names and dates, sublime and heroic and sometimes comic, come to mind.  Bobby Riggs facing Billie Jean King before the largest crowd ever to see a tennis [...]

For nearly fifteen years, television viewers have watched politico-turned-journalist Chris Matthews deliver his impressive lungpower on the talk show Hardball, first on CNBC, then MSNBC.  Probably every block in the country has at least one resident who can do a reasonable Matthews impression.  Whenever Darrell Hammond makes a return visit to Saturday Night Live, a re-creation [...]

In the October 1967 issue of Foreign Affairs, an article appeared under the byline of Richard Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam.”  (The two-word spelling of this country’s name was what the magazine’s editors favored, but here I’ll use the more familiar form.)  At that time the former Vice-President was still several months away from announcing his [...]

Last year, I wrote here about David and Julie Eisenhower’s book Going Home To Glory, which described the last eight years of President Eisenhower’s life, partly as seen first-hand by his grandson David, partly through the accounts of others in interviews and the documents of that period.  The book received excellent reviews and sold quite well.  Going [...]